The Bigger Picture – Sun and Mercury in Sagittarius

Mercury moves into Sagittarius on November 20th, followed closely by the Sun late on 22nd. This is a fiery and optimistic sign for the Royal Sun and his primary winged messenger to be situated, as Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter (aka Jove from where we get the word “jovial”). This is the marathon time of the year for those keen to capitalise on the festive and holiday mood that permeates most of our readers’ lives now. The opportunity to rake it in or dish it out in large doses is available to us all. The mood should be more spontaneous than usual, and “don’t sweat the small stuff” might be the motto of the month.

In our enthusiasm to be honest and frank we may find ourselves inadvertently putting our foot in our mouth, purely innocently of course, for the revengeful malice of Scorpio will have passed by now. Just remember that Jupiter is the biggest planet in the solar system so with this theme comes the propensity to be a bit extravagant in our generosity or indulgence, with less thought of the credit crunch to follow after the season of good cheer passes. By all means harness that enthusiasm and love of life. Just keep one eye on the bigger picture and your bank balance as well. Explore the great outdoors if you get a chance, expand your horizons by all means, without being careless at least this month.

This is an ideal time to pursue deeper philosophical or moral issues too. Those great rhetorical questions of life, the universe and everything should be asked, for they do indeed have answers. What is life without some depth of meaning, some perspective, some greater purpose, and this is the month to pursue just those insights. Great souls before us have asked just the same questions and have come up with some pretty profound answers, both tried and tested, so you don’t have to start from scratch. Any university library, online website or temple bookshop should give you all the answers you need as to who am I, what is the goal of life, why are there so many stars in the sky, is there life after death, who wrote these laws and what is the best way to implement them. Such moral, judicial and philosophical questions are ripe for the answering now as Mercury allows the mind to comprehend the bigger issues when in Sagittarius. Leave the other times of the year to sort out the day to day detailed stuff, but for this month step back and get the bigger picture, visualizing where your current path is taking you and where you will be in 5 or 10 years from now if you keep on it. Just don’t be too hasty to get there, for time is one thing that can never be replaced once it is lost. Think big if you must, aim high, but remember the little man while you shoot for the stars. We need to be fair in everything we do. No over-optimistic riding roughshod over the other souls on our expansive road to fortune. That would be unethical and thus defeat the very purpose of it all. It’s win-win or no game when you really analyse the scene globally at this stage. There’s no more room to indulge on our ever-shrinking planet, with resources, land, water and other such life-sustaining valuables being scooped up all around by those who can, as it all gets privatised away from under our feet. So bigger may have been better in the old days, but today ethical and sustainable practice will win the day and show the world your true intelligence. The gas guzzler is only looked at with disdain in today’s world. Also the forest guzzler, who in the name of palm oil or soya plantations mindlessly rips up the indigenous forest, like a wolf pack ripping the lungs out of the chest of a buffalo carcass. Those forests are the lungs of the planet, and at the end of the day it’s our fresh air too. Who ever imagined, just a few decades ago, that we would be buying bottled water from a store? Similarly, who can foresee the day when we need to buy our oxygen by the bottle because there is just not enough left floating freely in our atmosphere?

So be bold this month, think big, see the bigger picture, but remember to avoid over-confidence or a glib approach to life that ends up becoming a careless disregard for tomorrow. For tomorrow begins today. Great souls from far off foreign cultures and far distant times in the past have left us guidelines to follow, if you are looking for answers. The rest is common sense. “Keep your feet on the ground when you reach for the stars” is another worthwhile motto now, and you don’t need to know Sanskrit to figure out the meaning of that profound aphorism.